8/15/19 Did Homo erectus use an RRG grammar? RR RRG -2019 2019 Daniel L. Everett Bentley University § Language is a biocultural behaviour. Thus research into its origins is necessarily an interdisciplinary exercise. Models of language origins typically integrate social, cognitive, anatomical and genetic data with broad Language is a comparative perspectives drawn from ethology while Biocultural archaeology provides the critical time-depth for model- building. Although there is widespread agreement that Behavior symbols are crucial to language, there is profound disagreement on what constitutes language and when it evolved. 1
8/15/19 § Archaeology § Linguistics & Field Research on Contemporary Languages § Semiotics § Comparative Biology What Evidence § Philosophy is Available to § Cognitive Science Tell This Story? § Paleoneuroscience § Neuroscience § Evolutionary Theory § Genetics § A set of sentences described by a recursive grammar What IS § OR Language? § Transfer of information via symbols. 2
8/15/19 § All entities in the world, arguably even minerals, Who Has communicate . § Only humans appear to have Language. Language? § Communication is the transfer of information via signs. Communication § Language is the transfer of information via symbols. vs. Language 3
8/15/19 § Index: A sign connected physically to its referent. § Footprints; smoke; smells; pointing... Symbols and § Icon: A sign that resembles its referent. § Photograph; painting; diagram; blueprints... Signs § Symbol: A sign that picks out a referent by convention § “Dog” means ‘canine’ because English speakers agree that it does. § The threshold to symbols was likely sudden. But the evolution of the platforms for language took time. § One view is that language is about 100-200,000 years Gradual or old. § An alternative view, my own, is that language has Sudden? existed for 60,000 plus generations , or more than 1 million years old. This is my proposal. In this time that we have together, I am going to tell you why I believe this. 4
8/15/19 § Speech is secondary; language is primary § There are languages that can be whistled, hummed, or spoken with very few sounds. § Computers get by with two “sounds” § Many are coming to believe that erectus, in fact many other animals (if Fitch is correct) had the capacity for modern human speech. Speech vs. Language § Quantal vowels: i, a, u § Found in all of the world’s languages § Easiest to hear § Already there or came later? § Laitman & Lieberman vs. Fitch § Blasi and Rogers, and C. Everett all argue for exo-centric factors – inter alia – affecting speech evolution Our Hero: Homo erectus 5
8/15/19 § 1.8mya-140kya – most successful species in the history of the genus Homo § 5’8”-5’11” § 950cc brains (overlapping in range with some European sapiens females) Who Was Homo erectus? § Wide-ranging, polymorphic species. § Arguably possessed modern vocal apparatus (if not, no big deal – the body evolves to support new abilities that enhance survival – e.g. language). § Ocean-traveler, tool-maker, cultural, invented fire, communities § Gradualist vs. saltationist views of language origins. § Grammar vs. symbols (words, constructions, etc) as the Opposing Views starting point. (There Are Always Opposing Views!) § Uniquely human or non-unique human set of human abilities shared with other animals. § Cartesian vs. non-Cartesian models. 6
8/15/19 Evolution of the Brain Human ancestry, 2012 model 7
8/15/19 § Invented formal logic before Frege (1870) § Invented Semiotics before Saussure (1867) 19 TH Century § Invented Pragmatism (1878; name co-opted by W . James) Philosopher Charles Sanders § Considered America’s greatest Peirce mathematician. § Other fundamental discoveries in mathematics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and other fields. 8
8/15/19 § Dark matter of the mind: any knowledge unspoken in normal circumstances, usually unarticulated even to ourselves. It may be ineffable. Dark Matter of § DMM emerges from acting, "languaging" and "culturing" as we learn conventions and the Mind knowledge organization, and adopt value (Everett 2016) properties and orderings. It is shared and it is personal. It comes via emicization, apperceptions, and memory, and thereby produces our sense of "self”. § Culture is an abstract network shaping and connecting social roles, hierarchically structured knowledge What is Culture domains, and ranked values. Culture is (Everett 2016) dynamic, shifting, reinterpreted moment by moment. Culture is only found in the bodies (the brain is part of the body) and behaviors of its members. 9
8/15/19 § First UG – logical properties of signification, neither nature nor nurture (Modistae 13 th and 14 th centuries; C.S. Peirce 19 th and 20 th centuries). Built on semiotic (sign)_ relationships, not syntax. § Second UG – Major argument: “my granddaughter is Universal not a kitten nor a rock” – Grammar: Logical, § No one denies that language is based on biology. That is not the question. The question is whether the biology is Interactional or specific to language. Biological? § Both UGs have recursion: Peirce’s has semantic primarily; Chomsky’s syntactic primarily. The crucial issue is whether language is mainly about form or meaning. § Individual devices or process that meets perceived needs of individuals, communities. § A set of devices, processes, and expertise used to harness the properties of a particular Tools Are Social material. Conventions § Full culturally-constructed repertoire of knowledge, conventions, devices, and processes. Values are vital at each stage/level. 10
8/15/19 § Enmesh the material with the ideational. § Social constructivism. Human Technology § Tools become symbols as they emerge from the values, knowledge structures, and social roles of a particular culture. § Learning of technical skills takes place using a combination of language, gesture, imitation, and guided intervention. (This applies to all erectus, neanderthalensis, and sapiens tools.) Implications of Social § Based on lab experiments with stone-tool Constructivism learners. § My experience in the Amazon – e.g. Banawa blow guns. 11
8/15/19 § Object – Signs § Representation – § Interpretation – § All animals – physical connection to “referent” Indexes § Nonintentional § Nonarbitrary § Displacement 12
8/15/19 § Physical resemblance § Nonintentional Icons § Nonarbitrary § Displacement/representation § 1. Conventional § 2. Intentional in form and interpretant Symbols § 3. Displacement § 4. Symbols are the prerequisites for language. § No symbols à no language. 13
8/15/19 Fossil Indexes (Au.af.): LaetoliFootprints: ca. 3.7mya Australopithecus africanus 14
8/15/19 Makapangsgat Pebble ca 3mya Australopithicene Tools 15
8/15/19 Earliest Stone Technology, 3.3mya, Lomekwi 3, Kenya No Imposition of Form; Hammer on Anvil Icons 16
8/15/19 Symbols (Conventional, Displaced Meaning) § G 1 grammars allow symbols to be arranged by linear precedence rules only – no hierarchy, no recursion. § A G 2 grammar allows structures with hierarchy, but does not allow recursive structures. Symbols to Grammars § A G 3 grammar allows structures with both recursion and hierarchy. § Symbols are crucial; grammar is secondary (cf. Murphy 2017) 17
8/15/19 Erectus Icons § Humans Represent Anything ErfoudManuport ca. 300kya 18
8/15/19 H. erectus and Acheulean technology: intentional tool forms: handaxe, cleaver, pick from 1.8 million to 200,000 years ago Refined (thinned) handaxe, Late Acheulean, South Africa Shaping = imagination, intention, planning, memory 19
8/15/19 § Controlled use of fire § Pre-shaping stone tools § Use of wood, bone tools H. erectus inventions & innovations Hierarchical planning for pre- shaping block to remove large flake blank for making a cleaver Prepared cores, south & north Africa – ~1 million years ago (Li et al. 2017 Royal Society Open Science 4) 20
8/15/19 § ~ 900-800 ka : early prepared core technologies (Li et al. 2017); ‘hand points’ – small bifaces (Gowlett et al. 2017); soft hammer thinning (Galloti et al. 2010) § ~550-500 ka : blades (Johnson & McBrearty 2010; Wilkins & Chazan 2012); and controlled use of fire § ~500-300 ka : ochre use (Deino & McBrearty 2002; Watts et al. 2016; Brooks et al. 2018); hafting (Ambrose 2010; Barham 2013; Sahle et al. 2013; Wilkins et al. 2012, 2014); Levallois technologies, MSA points (Brooks et al. 2018) Late Acheulean innovations after 1 million years ago § Combinatory thinking; imagining the future. Hafting § But imagining the future is found in other tools. (Attaching Tools to § Likely invented by erectus. One of the most significant Tools -e.g. a technological breakthroughs in history. handle) 21
8/15/19 § The use of ochre is significant for the idea that they were symbols. (500kya) Beyond § New work in progress by Barham suggests as early as Function: 900kya erectus put tools through a multi-stage process Ochre to dye them. (Dating not yet confirmed, so not to be cited.) Handaxe 22
8/15/19 Cleaver Pick 23
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8/15/19 End of Acheulean, Mieso, Ethiopia, 212 Ka (de la T orre et al. 2014 JHE ) Very late Acheulean co- existing with Middle Stone Age at Mieso 25
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